Actors' Shakespeare Project will present The Cherry Orchard, Anton Chekhov's absurdist comedy of human frailties in an evolving world, February 12 to March 9, 2014 at The Dane Estate at Pine Manor College, 400 Heath Street, Chestnut Hill, MA. The production is directed by Obie Award-winner Melia Bensussen.

While from very different times and places, Chekhov shared much with Shakespeare-above all, the silliness and sadness of recognizing ourselves on stage. These shared visions are most evident in The Cherry Orchard, and its aristocratic family at a loss in a changing world, a common theme found even in today's most popular TV period dramas, such as global sensation Downton Abbey. In Chekhov's masterful hands, the subject finds a delicate, and pitch-perfect voice that evokes deeper, more universal emotions of isolation and dislocation in our own lives. This pervasive sense of what might have been, as they appear in the missed connections and opportunities of Madam Ranevskaya within her beloved cherry orchard, transcends 19th century Russia-at once both sad, but also darkly funny.

Anton Chekhov's final, and most famous work, premiered at the Moscow Art Theatre on January 17, 1904, the year of his death, directed by Konstantin Stanislavski and Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko. According to director Melia Bensussen, "The ASP production will retain all the power of the Russian classic, but will render the play it in its clearest and lightest vein. Along with the ambiance of the Dane Estate at Pine Manor and the ASP company, a new translation and design work in tandem to make this Cherry Orchard true to Chekhov's spirit of transparent comedy, and a heartbreaking look at the absurdities that we all share in being alive."